Kenya president proposes unity government

Stephanie McCrummen, The Washington PostCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said Saturday that he is willing to form a national unity government with opposition leader Raila Odinga, who has accused Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 presidential election.

Odinga has rejected direct negotiations with Kibaki's government and is pushing for internationally mediated talks to end the post-election crisis, which has caused waves of protests, riots and ethnically charged violence across this normally peaceful nation.

The opposition leader said the starting point for any talks would be that "Kibaki is there illegally." Odinga has proposed a transitional government and a new presidential vote in three to six months.

Kibaki has rejected outside mediation, although he and Odinga agreed Saturday to allow Ghanaian President and African Union Chairman John Kufuor to come to Kenya for discussions.

"We're not calling it mediation," a U.S. official in the region said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The official added, "There was definitely no breakthrough."

Kibaki and Odinga met Saturday with Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, who arrived in Nairobi on Friday for a three-day visit.

International election observers have questioned the results of Kenya's presidential election, which began with great promise and degenerated into suspicion, chaos and violence during the vote-tallying phase.

At least 250,000 people have been displaced, mostly in western Kenya, and at least 300 people have been killed.

The country ground to a halt for nearly a week, although the capital has come back to life over the past two days.

Elsewhere, millions of Odinga's supporters who live in Nairobi's slum areas have been under virtual house arrest as riot police firing tear gas and live bullets continue to push back any group trying to protest in the streets.

Odinga said that in the western city of Kisumu, police had shot so many of his supporters that "the morgue is full." The city has been wrecked by riots and looting, and news services reported last week that dozens of people had been killed there.

In other parts of western Kenya, tens of thousands of people -- mostly from Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group -- are fleeing their homes as they come under attack from tribal militias that are torching entire villages and setting up roadblocks to check the ethnicity of passersby. Thousands of people are huddled in churches, schools and fields or are on the move across the region.

Kibaki and Odinga have called for calm, with each blaming the other for the violence.

How to help

The following organizations are providing relief in Kenya after the postelection violence: